Friday, November 21, 2014

Story Seed - Breakout

The night was quiet as Otyr sat below the canopy of stars. The hunk of wood in his hands slowly shedding pieces of itself as he worked the knife. Otyr didn't yet know what was within the wood, but head steadily cut away at it nonetheless, waiting for that first hint of what this would become.

Behind him the homestead was likewise quiet, he could hear his wife washing dishes, he could hear his boys, supposed to be sleeping, playing quietly in the back of the house. He smiled to himself, remembering his own childhood, the things he thought his parents didn't know he did. The folly of youth, Otyr thought to himself as he carved away another curl of wood.

The small pile of shavings at his feet grew larger as the evening wore on. The boys quieted down, finally succumbing to sleep's embrace. Kiolla came out to sit by his side for a while, her knitting needles adding a new rhythm to the evening, but eventually she yawned and retired for the night, leaving Otyr with his carving.

After some time he stopped, flexing his cramped hands, and took a long look at the figurine in his hands. He frowned, it was not what he would have expected. A figure of sweeping curves and gaunt features, it was clearly a shade or spectre. Staring at the hideous figure and wondering if he would ever be able to see such an object at market Otyr noticed that the quite of the night had become a stillness broken only by a low rumble.

The rumble quickly built, jostling the ground itself, and setting his teeth on edge. The sound was painful. Unnatural. Otyr stood, preparing to check on his family when the rumble reached a crescendo, exploding into a great sound like stones being broken. Otyr was bowled over, the figuring tumbling out of his grasp one way, his knife the other. The mountains, distant but visible under the light of the moons shuddered once and then subsided, crumbing in places with distant rumbles of stone on stone.

Rising from the broken peaks an ejection of spectral ectoplasm, glowing green in the night sky and dotted with indistinct bright motes. Otyr swallowed, fearing what he did not understand, but knowing intrinsically that something had happened in the Night Vaults, and fearing that what he saw was something escaping.